The other, bigger picture

What I found really disturbing about the whole Vhong Navarro mauling incident is most people’s misconceptions about rape. And I thought we’ve come a long way since the time when a rape is deemed corrected if the perpetrator marries his victim; or when a rape was deemed justified if the victim is proven to have been promiscuous in the past or acted and dressed provocatively; or when rape was something that can never happen between couples, married or not.

Consider this opinion posted online: "She couldn’t have been raped since she’s given him oral sex in the past. "

A woman having consented to having sexual relations with anyone in the past does not render her subsequent consent to have sex unnecessary. This line of thinking is also the reason why most Filipinos still can’t comprehend the concept of marital or spousal rape.

Sex is a consensual act between two, or in some cases more (frowned upon by most but let’s face it, it happens), persons and at any given time, and yes, even in the middle of the act, all, both or either one can decide to no longer consent, stop, or not ever do it again. When one is forced to have sex with another person against his or her will, by force, intimidation, threat,blackmail or ay other form of physical, emotional, psychological abuse, that’s rape. When one is unable to consent to sex at all such as when the person is heavily intoxicated, unconscious, etc., that’s rape.

Here’s another: “She invited him to her condo, alone, late at night, that only meant one thing and therefore she couldn’t have been raped.”

An invitation to come to one’s condo may or may not be an invitation to have sex. Simply, the only time you can have sex with another person is when that person agrees to do it with you. Period. Even if they engaged in certain sensual acts that night, kissing, petting, touching, etc., if she didn’t agree to have sexual intercourse with him, and he still forced himself on her, that’s rape.

And yet another: “She couldn’t have been raped because rape victims don’t just go on television to be interviewed if they were truly raped.”

Not even rape victims can tell whether another person was raped or not based on her actions after the incident. Individuals react differently – some rape victims keep their ordeal to themselves, never telling another soul, while others find the courage to come out in the open. There are the Maggie dela Rivas who stood up against her abusers, and there are the Maria Teresa Carlsons who, after attempting to expose the abuses inflicted upon her, ending up falling to her death from the 23rd floor of a building. Then there were those who have been silenced forever such as Chiong sisters in the infamous Cebu rape-slay case, or Carmela Vizconde in the much talked about Vizconde Massacre case.

I believe this passage from a blog (www.feministe.us) says it best: “Rapists don’t rape because they can’t “get” sex elsewhere. Rapists don’t rape because they’re uncontrollably turned on by the sight of some cleavage, or a midriff, or red lipstick, or an ankle. They rape because they’re misogynist sadists, and they flourish in places where misogyny is justified as tradition and maleness comes with a presumption of violence.”

It goes on further to say that, “Combating rape and sexual assault goes beyond just criminalizing and prosecuting it. It requires an understanding of how many misogynist puzzle pieces fit together – that a cultural belief that the female body is inherently tempting and dirty cannot be separated from actions that do violence to female bodies; that a conceit of eliteness or purity means perpetrators within special elite or pure groups will get away with committing crimes; that community policing is useless for enforcing gendered crimes when community norms privilege men; that the politicization of female sexuality sends a message that the female body is public property and that women are less deserving of basic rights than men.”

I don’t know whether Vhong Navarro or Deniece Cornejo is telling the truth, the wheels of our justice system ought to be allowed to turn for us to really know what happened on the night of January 22, 2014. But let’s not miss the bigger picture here: our own myopic view of rape. Time to look in the mirror and re-examine ourselves for as long as we look at this issue through biases, misguided, misogynist eyes, these despicable acts will happen over and over again. We owe it to our mothers and sisters and daughters and, indeed, our sons, and brothers and fathers to foster societies where each individual’s rights and dignity are protected and defended.